Chapter 7

We got across the river and into Texas without hindrance. Once we were safely across the river I led my convoy to Mrs. Shipley's house. At that point, I had no concrete plans, I just wanted the women to be able to return home safely. Sadly, two of the 23 women in the convoy had died from an illness they had contracted at Golick's ranch. I didn't know what else to do, so we buried them along the trail and I put up a small wooden marker. The marker was not going to last long, but, at least, we tried.

I explained to Mrs. Shipley what had happened, and she was horrified. She put up all 21 of the women that night, but most of them were sleeping on the floor.

The next day, Mrs. Shipley organized a bath routine for the women, and they all appreciated it. While that was going on, I went to see Mrs. Shipley's brother, the lawyer, about how to handle the safe and any contents it might have. Mr. Upson called in a locksmith he had dealt with before and the man spent about an hour worrying with the safe until he got it open. We were all startled at the amount of gold that poured out of the safe when the door was opened.

I tipped the locksmith $100 from the safe's contents and sent him on his way. Mr. Upson and I counted the money and came up with $41,380, all of it in gold bars or double eagles. Mr. Upson listened to the story of how I came by the safe and frowned for a minute, then he said, "It looks to me like you can claim all of this money as found treasure. It is certain that the original owners are not going to contest your possession of it. No wonder the damned safe was heavy, it held almost 144 pounds of gold. I gave Mr. Upson $500 as his fee and he helped me get the rest of the gold put into suitable bags and horse it up onto the wagon. I drove directly to Mrs. Shipley's house. Dammit, that's too much money to haul around in public.

When I got back to Mrs. Shipley's, I was greeted by 21 sweet-smelling young ladies, all of whom wanted to kiss me and make on over me. Naturally, being male, I never backed away from that. When I told them that the safe had contained gold and each one was getting $1,000, they were all over me again!

Most of the women had some place she could go, though some of the women were not sure what kind of reception that they would get. Five of the women had no place to go, either because their family was dead, or the family was too straight-laced to accept them back into the fold. Mrs. Shipley said that they could stay with her until they found more permanent arrangements. All of them had enough money to live on for several years, so that was not a problem. I was not able to help the women any further, so I bowed out of the discussion.

I had too much money on my hands to be comfortable, so I wanted to go back to the village to present the money to Gray Eagle and let him worry about it.

I left for home in a couple of days and got there in a little over a week. No big deal this time, every thing was going along placidly. Gray Eagle took the $21,000 I gave him to be added to the hoard he was keeping for the village. He had not needed to tap the cache, so he now had over $40,000. He asked me to back off bringing in more money, since that much money was too big a temptation for almost anyone to resist. I promised to honor his request, but I wondered what I would do with any new money I earned.

You may wonder why I have not gone after Cyrus Harkins. The answer is simple, I was waiting until I was absolutely certain that I could beat him in a duel. It was not that I was afraid of dying so much as I didn't want to die before I had killed him. I thought I was pretty close to ready, but I wanted to be sure.

I was a little bit reluctant to go back to bounty hunting since I didn't know what to do with my money. I thought about it a while and decided to ask someone whose word and experience I respected: Jeremiah Upson.

I spent a couple of weeks in the village renewing old acquaintances, but finally decided that it was time to move on. I headed for El Paso to talk to Jeremiah Upson and to visit with Mrs. Shipley. I figured that one or two of the women would still be there, so I was looking forward to a pleasant reunion with a few of the women.

The reunion was anything but pleasant! Every one of the 21 women I had rescued had returned to El Paso because they had been rejected by the families they had thought to rejoin. Six of them had even stolen the woman's money before throwing her out! Well, I knew what I was going to be doing for the next week or so.

I visited each of the homes where the woman had her money stolen and demanded it back. I must of looked fearsome enough that five of the families returned the $1,000, but I had to shoot one man in the knee when he tried to draw on me. I collected the money from his wife and left him lying on the floor. She ran for a doctor before I was out of sight, so I suppose the man was cared for. Nevertheless, I found that I did not care in the least.

Now I was faced with the worst dilemma of my life! I had rescued these 21 women, and now I was responsible for them. This was a time when women had very few social opportunities. As a general rule, women were either wives, school teachers, or prostitutes. Many of them had been rejected as wives, assuredly for stupid reasons, but that was beside the point. They couldn't teach school because most, if not all, of them were illiterate. I had rescued them from a life of prostitution, so that was out.

Mrs. Shipley'd had long conversations with each of the women about what she hoped to do with her life, and what she would do if she had a completely free choice. Some would be farmers, some would be shopkeepers, but most simply wanted to return to being wives and mothers. Shit, that was no help! But, wait a minute, maybe it was.

What if the women set up a community of their own? They could have a large garden plot where they raised much of their own food, and sold what they didn't use, themselves. That would take care of the would-be farmers and shopkeepers. The rest could care for the place, cook and sew, etc. Any who had craft skills, and most of them did, could make items to be sold in the store. An orphanage could be started as an adjunct to the community, since children were in a shit load of trouble if they lost their parents for any reason, and this could resolve the mothering instinct that so many of the women exhibited.

Sure, it would take a while to shake out the problems, but that would be a part of the community's growing process. As the community matured, they could take in additional women who were having an unusually difficult time, particularly those women who were abused, because society refused to believe that such women existed. Anyway, after several weeks of discussion and soul-searching among the women, Mrs. Shipley, and me, that was what we decided to do, with Mrs. Shipley as sorority mother and final arbitor. Me? I would supply the money to start the community and to keep it going until it became self-supporting.

When the women kicked in their money and I put up mine I retrieved from Gray Eagle, we had about $40,000 to work with, which was plenty to get us started. Had we needed more, I would have gotten it from Gray Eagle.

Jeremiah Upson, the lawyer brother of Mrs. Shipley, was contacted to help us get started. He knew an honest (!) land broker who helped us find a small farm/ranch near El Paso. The main thing we had to do was to enlarge the ranch house radically to provide enough bedrooms.

It took nearly seven months, but we were finally ready to move in. Mrs. Shipley sold her house in El Paso and joined the community of Joy, as we called ourselves. I had a separate little house on the property, near enough to the main house so that it was convenient for me to take my meals, there. However, I had no interest in living in a house full of 22 women, that would have driven me crazy!

One problem was left to iron out, at least according to the women. Here I was, approaching my 14^th birthday and still a virgin! All of the women wanted to repay me for rescuing them, but they did not know how. Eventually, it occurred to them, and I doubt that it really took very long, that the ideal birthday present would be for them to relieve me of my burden of virginity.